Culture+Week+2012

=Culture Week 2012: Africa=

//CEC World's Fair: Solving the World's Problems, One Continent at a Time//

For this year's culture week, you will examine a region in Africa (country or countries), identify a problem in that region, and develop a solution to that problem. The specific problem you select should be drawn from one of the broad categories of **crime, disease/mortality, industrialization,** or **revolution**. For more information on developing a driving question and following the research process, consult this [|example] developed by Ms. Shore.

This page contains resources related to CEC's Culture Week 2012, specifically Mr. Smith and Mrs. Barr's section on Science and Technology. Some questions we'll consider include:
 * What is the current state of science and technology (e.g. modernization, industrialization, Internet access, use of social media) in African countries?
 * How can science and technology be used to solve existing problems in African countries?

[ Day 1 ]
Today, you'll choose a country in Africa and begin researching two related questions:
 * What is the current level of industrialization/modernization in your selected country?
 * How does this compare to the United States (or sub-regions thereof)?

Resources you may want to consider using in your research include: Logical search keywords might include "industrialization," "modernization," and the name of your country. You might also consider researching the terms "first world" and "third world." For more ideas about search terms, consult the Visual Thesaurus (be advised, though, that you have to use a "free trial" that limits you to only a few searches, so you'll have to go to the home page and start over if you're clicking through many synonyms).
 * "If It Were My Home" -- @http://www.ifitweremyhome.com
 * Major news outlets -- e.g. Google News (@http://news.google.com), BBC (@http://www.bbc.com), NPR (@http://www.npr.org)
 * NC Live -- @http://www.nclive.org
 * CIA World Factbook (Africa section) -- @https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/wfbExt/region_afr.html
 * Infoplease Country Profiles -- @http://www.infoplease.com/countries.html
 * Infoplease US State profiles -- @http://www.infoplease.com/states.html

Your group should set up a Google Doc in which to collect your research, which you will then share orally with the class. Be prepared to support your findings with concrete details (e.g. statistics, direct quotations).

[ Day 2 ]
Today, we're going to examine the relationship between technology and crime in Africa. We will examine and take notes on the following sources: We will then discuss these sources in a mini Socratic seminar.
 * "Foreign Policy: Africa's Internet Threat" (NPR article)
 * "How Teenagers Learned to Hate Joseph Kony" (NPR article)
 * "How Social Media Can Make History" (TED talk video)
 * "Erik Hersman on reporting crisis via texting" (TED talk video)

[ Day 3 ]
Today, we're going to consider disease by conducting a simulation of a flu outbreak.

If time permits, we'll also consider other issues of disease and mortality in Africa by viewing and discussing the following TED talks:
 * "How I taught rats to sniff out land mines" (Bart Weetjens)
 * "Emily Oster flips our thinking on AIDS in Africa"

Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Africa_(orthographic_projection).svg/200px-Africa_(orthographic_projection).svg.png